Sensors and sensing circuits are incorporated in an ever-growing number of electronic devices and computing systems. For example, many automated or autonomous systems, such as autonomous vehicles and robots, rely on various sensors for knowledge of the surrounding environment and to facilitate interactions with that environment, such as path finding. The use of sensors in such autonomous systems is akin to human senses.
Due to safety considerations and a desire for known failure states, many autonomous systems handle sensor failure by implementing a shut-down failure mode. For example, an autonomous vehicle may come to a stop, automatically move to the shoulder of the road, or shift to a driver-controlled state in response to the loss of a sensor. Similarly, a robot may simply shut down in response to a malfunctioning sensor. Such shut-down failure modes often fail to consider the actual impact of the loss of a particular sensor or provide any supplemental operational mode to allow the autonomous system to continue operation in some capacity.